• OVC Hall of Fame History
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Former UT Martin head men’s golf coach
Jerry Carpenter, the late Middle Tennessee head track and field coach
Dean Hayes and former SIUE head women’s softball coach and administrator
Sandy Montgomery have been elected to the Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame. The group will be officially inducted at the annual OVC Honors Brunch which will be held on Friday, June 2 in Nashville.
The Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame was organized in 1977 with the intent of honoring the coaches, administrators, faculty and staff who have been associated with the OVC for at least five years and provided extensive and outstanding service to the Conference. With the induction of this year’s class, the membership will reach 96.
During his tenure as golf coach (2002-20) Carpenter elevated the UT Martin golf program to new heights, including helping the program to its first OVC title in 2016. He was named OVC Coach of the Year twice (2014, 2016) and guided individual Skyhawk players to OVC Championship medalist honors in three straight seasons (2015-17), becoming only the third OVC school to achieve that honor. He also had three consecutive OVC Freshman of the Year recipients (2013-15), the first team in OVC history to accomplish the feat.
Overall the Skyhawks won 24 tournaments during his tenure (24
th all-time in NCAA Division I men’s history), including 22 over his final nine seasons. The team won four tournaments during his last season and the team was a potential favorite to win another OVC Championship before the year was cut short due to the pandemic. Through his final season (2019-20) there were 35 instances of a UTM player earning All-OVC, OVC All-Tournament or All-Newcomer honorees; 30 of which came while he was the head coach.
Off the course his team won seven OVC Team Sportsmanship Awards, including six straight from 2014-19. His squads also excelled in the classroom. Inducted into the UTM Hall of Fame in 2021, he recently had the practice grounds at the school’s practice facility named in his honor. A graduate of UT Martin, Carpenter was associated with his alma for nearly 60 years, first as a student, then manager of the campus bookstore, then later head men's golf coach and now in retirement, volunteer assistant golf coach. He has also worked on the football chain gang and basketball table crew, in addition to officiating football and basketball games at both the high school and collegiate levels.
Hayes, who passed away in January 2022, was revered locally, regionally, nationally and internationally as he promoted track and field around the globe. He took over as head coach at Middle Tennessee in 1965 and turned the program into a juggernaut, serving as head coach for 56 years.
During his tenure in the OVC, he led MTSU to 29 OVC titles, more than any other OVC member in conference history. He coached Blue Raider athletes to 374 individual or relay championships, had 28 individuals earn All-American status a total of 53 times and led MTSU to 15 NCAA Top 25 finishes. Additionally, he had athletes earn six individual national championships. He was named OVC Coach of the Year 15 times, including 10 in a row from 1977-86. Hayes was named the USTFCCA NCAA Division I Coach of the Year in 1981 and served as that coaches association President in 1982-83.
Hayes saw nine of his OVC-era athletes compete in the Olympics and had numerous athletes compete in the Goodwill Games, the World University Games, the World Cup, the World Championship, the Pan-Am Games and the African Championships.
He was also credited with integrating MTSU athletics, with Jerry Singleton becoming the first African American varsity scholarship athlete at the school in 1965. He is already a member of the USTFCCA Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, the Illinois Sports of Hall of Fame, the MTSU Blue Raider Hall of Fame, the Lake Forest College (his alma mater) Hall of Fame and the Naperville High School Hall of Fame. In 2009, the outdoor track stadium at MTSU was named Dean A. Hayes Stadium.
Montgomery spent 37 years as a softball student-athlete, assistant coach, head coach and administrator at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. As Associate Director of Athletics, she helped guide the department from NCAA Division II to Division I and the Ohio Valley Conference.
During her eight years as a softball coach in the OVC, she amassed a record of 130-67, with seven winning seasons. The Cougars broke through and claimed the 2014 OVC Tournament Championship, and a team later won the OVC regular season crown with a 20-6 league record. In 2017 the team won 41 games and finished in the Top 50 nationally in RPI. Montgomery was named the 2015 OVC Coach of the Year and from 2014-17 the Cougars appeared in the title game of the OVC Championship.
As Associate Athletics Director, Montgomery impacted the entire department, serving as a member of the certification process, working as a member of the Self-Study Steering Committee and the Equity and Student Welfare Sub-Committee.
For her entire 30-year head softball coaching career, she compiled a record of 1,051-540-2 with her squads winning 30 or more games in a season 21 times. When she won her 1,000th game in 2017, she became the only person to have played for and later won 1,000 games as coach at her alma mater. Prior to joining the OVC, she led SIUE to the NCAA Division II Tournament 11 times. As a collegiate player, she hurled 42 shutouts and amassed a 84-26 record on the mound, including a 30-8 record and 0.64 E.R.A. as a senior.
Montgomery, a member of the SIUE Hall of Fame, was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Hall of Fame in 2022.